RPGWatch Feature: Might & Magic X Preview

August 28th, 2013, 00:56

Dteowner had the opportunity to play around with Might and Magic X: Legacy for RPGWatch and came back with an article talking about both the good and bad parts of the game.

Combat (and, just like the old M&M titles, there's a lot of it) is pretty easy to grasp and fairly quick to complete. It's classic "I go, you go". Battles actually have some tactics involved since ranged attacks only go in a straight line and melee only works when you're adjacent to the monsters. The wise adventurer can take advantage of corners to put the fight on a desired footing. One problem I noticed is that the monsters will always get the first attack. They have a line of sight and become active when the party moves into range. Since that movement counts as the "I go", monsters will always get the first attack. You cannot initiate combat, even with bows or spells. Another complication is that once monsters move into melee range, you can no longer use bows. So that awesome archer that you've meticulously developed to be Death By Fletching will dutifully swap to her largely worthless dagger whether you like it or not. I don't know if that's something Ubi will be looking at, or whether it's working as intended. You might remember that MM7 (at least) had an autoswap as well, but you could turn that off if you wanted to use a specific weapon all the time.

Sounds great. The one thing which actually surprised me the most was that you played 12 hours. Was this the total game time of the Alpha or just your first session?
I mean even if it's just 9 hours if you don't count all the running around, that's quite a lot if you consider that lots of the content like NPCs and stuff isn't in yet and you played on easy mode. If that is really just 20% of the game, the game is bigger than I expected as I somewhere read that it will be rather short.

And just to compare: I finished Legend of Grimrock after 22h. And that game was already boring after maybe half to 2/3 of the game.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
Sounds great. The one thing which actually surprised me the most was that you played 12 hours. Was this the total game time of the Alpha or just your first session?

That was just day 1. According to Steam, I've got 24 hours in now. Now, keep in mind that I'm a complete-ist and I also made a point to walk every single tile in the game not occupied by ghosts. I think, given the changes Ubi has already made, someone not being anal-retentive like me could probably knock out the entire early release in about 10 hours. Supposedly, Ubi is targetting 30 hours of content in the full game, but it seems to me they'll go well beyond that for anyone that isn't zerging the main quest (which should be pretty much every single person that would be interested in an old skool RPG in the first place).

— Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
Dallas Cowboys: Great Season! / / Detroit Red Wings: Another rollercoaster this year?

Originally Posted by benetar
Oh come on Brother!
Tells us the riddle!
What are some good tweeks in that Text file to overcome some of the bugs —
I am gonna love this game.

Ubi has already changed the coding. Apparently, as I wrote, it was a simple adjustment. I don't know whether it's been issued as a "hot fix" yet, but I'm sure the corrected day/night cycle will be a standard part of the game very soon. No need to break out that hexidecimal editor.

— Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
Dallas Cowboys: Great Season! / / Detroit Red Wings: Another rollercoaster this year?

As far as I understand it it's like this:
In your "square" you have like 2 in the front and two in the back.
The back can shoot arrows, the ones in the front cant because they are in melee.
And you can only fight with enemies if they are in the tile next to you.

You can do the same thing as you did in M&M 3,4,5 where you back up and shoot arrows at the enemy and kill them before they get to you but it is one at a time so you can have magic users cast spells also.

You do get healing spells from the Earth and Light elements with regeneration from the Earth element being available right away and Heal from the Light element available when you get expert in Light. You can get Earth for your Archer which gives you good spells like Entangle (to keep the enemies away so you can shoot them) and regeneration. (so you can have your Archer do something else in melee range)

You could always have a different party composition with one Defender, Archer, and two Mages. Give the Defender Warefare and have him take all attacks, have the Archer concentrate on ranged and Earth, and one mage will be a healer, buffer, debuffer, and the other be an attack mage.

If an enemy is around a corner (it happens quite often) then you move back to make room while the enemy is coming into your line of sight and then you shoot them. That was also a common strategy in 3,4, and 5 also. If you want to use movement when they are in your line of sight there is always Entangle then move.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
As far as I understand it it's like this:
In your "square" you have like 2 in the front and two in the back.
The back can shoot arrows, the ones in the front cant because they are in melee.
And you can only fight with enemies if they are in the tile next to you.

Nope. Your party can be thought of as a single line. If the monsters are not in an adjacent tile, you can use bows and magic. "Line of sight" is usually 4 tiles, but since the monsters get first move, you'll end up with 3 tiles of "awareness" which means 2 empty tiles between you and them at the beginning of combat, which means 2 ranged attacks before melee per fight without using tactics. If the monsters are in an adjacent tile, you can use melee and magic. Spells with range can still be used in "hand to hand". Bows, however, cannot currently be used in "hand to hand".

— Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
Dallas Cowboys: Great Season! / / Detroit Red Wings: Another rollercoaster this year?

Originally Posted by guenthar
If an enemy is around a corner (it happens quite often) then you move back to make room while the enemy is coming into your line of sight and then you shoot them. That was also a common strategy in 3,4, and 5 also. If you want to use movement when they are in your line of sight there is always Entangle then move.

Yes, spells that immobilize or knock back (such as entangle and gust of wind) have far greater tactical value in MMX than in games like MM7.

Monsters do not always kite as well as you might like—if you duck around a corner and the monsters decide you're out of their area, they stop where they are and combat ends. The only way to start it up again is to walk into their sight lines again, except now that corner you were trying to use isn't in the same advantageous position that is was before.

— Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
Dallas Cowboys: Great Season! / / Detroit Red Wings: Another rollercoaster this year?

Originally Posted by guenthar
You do get healing spells from the Earth and Light elements with regeneration from the Earth element being available right away and Heal from the Light element available when you get expert in Light. You can get Earth for your Archer which gives you good spells like Entangle (to keep the enemies away so you can shoot them) and regeneration. (so you can have your Archer do something else in melee range)

True, but regeneration takes over half the archer's spell points, even if you rob development on the bow skills to fuel magic skills. That means one casting per battle without burning mana potions. Similarly, you can't make expert in light magic until half the demo is done, give or take, and that means completely sacrificing your offensive magic. I would consider both options to be viable as "backup healing" in the big picture, but I think Ubi really messed up not including a dedicated healer in the demo party.

— Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
Dallas Cowboys: Great Season! / / Detroit Red Wings: Another rollercoaster this year?

You could just have one mage used for healing and one used for attack magic. Regeneration is pretty good since it will restore the whole party for 36 hp each by the time it is done.

EDIT: I just tried with a Defender, Archer, and 2 Mages and it was easier then one of each but without the Barbarian I couldn't access the secret room at the end of the first dungeon so it might be good to keep the Barbarian.